Every Breath You Take

Every Breath You Take

Every breath you take has a unique chemical signature that can reveal the health of your lungs.

Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic recently examined a method that reads the signature of an individual’s exhaled breath to determine the presence of lung cancer in its earliest stages – a breakthrough that could significantly lower lung cancer mortality rates.

Picking up subtle clues

Like many types of cancer, the early symptoms of lung cancer are non-specific and easily missed. As a result, diagnosis of the disease usually occurs when the cancer is advanced and more difficult to treat. But a new diagnostic tool identifies the earliest stages of lung cancer with a non-invasive procedure.

In the medical journal Thorax, the Cleveland researchers note that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are created when metabolic changes occur within cancer cells. The Cleveland team tested a technique that uses a small array of chemically sensitive sensors that detect VOC patterns unique to cancer. The sensors are small spots on a disposable cartridge. The spots change color if specific VOCs are present in exhaled breath.

STUDY PROFILE

Of 143 subjects recruited for the trial, 122 had different types of respiratory disease

Nearly 50 subjects had been diagnosed with small cell lung cancer

Researchers examined sensor results from 70 percent of the subjects in order to establish a predictive model

With this model, the remaining 30 percent were tested

About three out of four cases of lung cancer were successfully predicted

Results were not affected by the varying stages of cancer

Further trials of this promising technique are needed to confirm its effectiveness. And hopefully those trials are underway, given that the only common breath testing techniques for lung cancer (mass spectrometry and gas chromatography) are very expensive and require such specific expertise that early stages of cancer are often missed.

The care & feeding of lungs

The importance of lung health can’t be overstated, of course, so I searched back through several years of e-Alerts and came up with a few tips that can help you keep your lungs disease-free.

Lung function deteriorates for all of us as we age, but one key vitamin may help keep lungs healthy. In 2000, researchers followed up on a large study that examined the relationship between dietary factors and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – an umbrella term that refers to asthma, emphysema, bronchitis, or any combination of the three.

Researchers found that subjects who consumed the highest amounts of vitamin C had better lung function than those with lower levels of C intake. More specifically, in subjects with COPD, high intake of vitamin C and magnesium was linked to significantly better lung function than COPD patients with low intake of those nutrients.

According to Jyoti Patel, M.D. – a specialist in women’s lung cancer – women are at greater risk of developing lung cancer than men, and that includes non-smoking women. Dr. Patel offers four danger signs that all women should watch for: A cough that changes character – such as severity or frequency

Awakened at night by coughing
Shortness of breath
Blood in sputum

If your diet includes plenty of antioxidants – particularly vitamins C and E, carotenoids, and flavonoids – you have a lower risk of developing lung cancer, whether you smoke or not.

And of course, if you smoke, the sooner you quit the better. I know that’s easier said than done because I’ve quit cigarette smoking several times. In the e-Alert “Tool Time” (8/17/05), you can find details about the simple technique that eventually worked for me. http://www.hsionline.com/ealerts/ea200508/ea20050817.html

Sources:
“Diagnosis of Lung Cancer by the Analysis of Exhaled Breath with a Colorimetric Sensor Array” Thorax, published ahead of print, 2007, thorax.bmj.com
“Lung Cancer: A Woman’s Disease” Janice Billingsley, HealthDay, 1/14/05, usatoday.com